realtor.com, where the world shops for real estate online, is the official Web site of the National Association of Realtors and is operated by Move, Inc (NASDAQ: MOVE). As the #1 homes-for-sale site, realtor.com offers potential home buyers access to over four million property listings. It also provides Realtors and the home sellers they represent with the Internet's largest real estate marketplace.

Real Estate Rebounds are Strikingly Different in California and Florida

It’s no secret that the two most populous markets where home values got hit hardest during the housing bust – Florida and California – are now both well into rebound mode. But which one appears to be the stronger at the moment?

From a review of the latest monthly data compiled from local multiple listing services by Realtor.com, there’s no question: Both states are seeing localized price gains that far outpace most metropolitan areas around the country – the national median list price gain was just 0.8 percent for the 12 months ending in September. But Florida’s recovery is a bit more uneven, with some local markets lagging and even going negative, while most California cities are seeing substantial price gains, some of them reminiscent of the “bubble” numbers last seen in 2004-2005.

Consider this: Of the top 10 metropolitan areas nationwide that have seen the biggest annual gains year-over-year, California has six. They are: Santa Barbara, which continues to rack up stunning increases (32 percent year-over-year and a 3.2 percent month-to-month jump between August and September); San Francisco (+18.1 percent), San Jose (17.5 percent), Sacramento (14.2 percent,) Oakland (14 percent) and Riverside-San Bernadino (12.6 percent).

These are frothy numbers by any standard, and reflect in part the declining numbers of foreclosures being sold at giveaway prices in the interior markets of the state, and in part the underlying economic demand for real estate in the coastal cities, where prices traditionally have been high but plummeted dramatically during the recession years. In the latest Realtor.com survey, not one major California city showed anything close to a decline in median list prices. The slowest mover, in fact, was San Diego, which had a 4.2 percent median gain for the year – more than quadruple the national median.

Florida’s recovery is a more nuanced story. On the one hand, Miami continues to attract cash-ready condo investors and sun seekers from around the globe; as a result, its median list price rose by 11.6 percent year-over-year in the latest survey. That pace is down from the second quarter of this year, when prices were up by 19.4 percent, but it’s still extraordinary.

Other major metropolitan areas in Florida also are turning in impressive year-over-year numbers, such as Ft. Myers-Cape Coral (median list prices up by 11.6 percent), Tampa (7.1 percent), Ft. Lauderdale (7 percent) and Jacksonville (6.4 percent.) But a handful of smaller markets aren’t performing as well, either because their local economies aren’t producing new jobs, their inventories of houses for sale haven’t fallen fast in the recovery, or they still have an excess of REO available at rock bottom list prices.

Ft. Pierce-St. Lucie, for example, saw median list prices drop by 4.1 percent over the past year. Gainesville prices dropped by 1.2 percent, Tallahassee, the state capital, lost 0.6 percent. And Naples, which is a relatively high-income resort city on the Gulf of Mexico, saw median list prices fall by 2.7 percent.

The contrast with California is pretty stark: Florida’s real estate rebound is substantial but not statewide. California’s housing rebound, on the other hand, is underway virtually throughout the state. But it’s verging on bubbly in some areas – which is not necessarily a healthy sign since bubbles always burst.

Ken Harney writes a nationally syndicated column on housing and mortgage issues, the Nation’s Housing, and has won numerous “Best Column – All Media” awards from the National Association of Real Estate Editors, along with the Consumer Federation of America’s prestigious “Media Service Award,” for lifetime contributions to consumer interests in housing. He served a three year term on the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council and is the author of two books on real estate and mortgage finance.

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